Chapter 8: Dead Of Night

Nomad-117: I am back… after way longer than I had originally intended. I could tell you all that it was a busy time, that I got a new job, which is considered important even with all this mess going on and it would be all true. However, I will also admit that this is 1000% my own fault as well as I kept postponing it. Hence, I got myself some help. My good friend Vergil1989, to kick me in the nuts and get back at this instead of being a lazy bitch. Now then, onto the madness!

The clock indicated that it was early morning, but all divisions of time had become meaningless in the past few days. Noon, morning, evening, night, it was all the same to Natasha by now, blended together in a blur of data, paper, screens, numbers, letters, images. All they could've needed to find even the most obscure information.

And this was merely a fraction of the puzzle, she'd been told. The mysterious circle was still being analyzed, trying to find a sensible meaning, some sort of connection to anything they could further pursue. Other agents had been dispatched as well. A fool's errand in her mind to try and gather forensics from a battlefield decades old in the abandoned manor. Those that were trying to find out more about this supposed sister of Emiya though might be onto something. It wouldn't be easy to get to the remains undetected, but they only had need of a small sample to get to the DNA inside.

She was sure certain people in the World Security Council would prefer to just subdue the temple residents to get at the bodies, but thankfully they had far more sensible compatriots to shoot down such a heavy handed approach. Didn't mean whatever they came up with to get what they wanted wouldn't end up causing her and Clint no small amount of annoyance, but her current frustration with what they knew, which apparently wasn't as much as she'd hoped the longer they investigated, had softened somewhat with the advent of a new lead. Tenuous as it was, anything was better than the ghosts they'd been chasing this whole time.

Speaking of ghosts… the data before was… extensive. Villages, small towns, communes, at times even individuals that had vanished without a trace in a similar fashion as to the reports that had caused Emiya to abandon that refugee camp. Some bordered on straight up myths, no more reliable than fairy tales perhaps, but all of it was taken into account.

Data about missing persons, slain livestock, and more was fed into the analytics machine that was S.H.I.E.L.D. and dozens of highly trained personnel compiled this data, trying to locate patterns, to predict where something like that would occur next. Multiple possible sites had been identified, a probability that was considered… far from ideal assigned to each of them. Until, some lower ranked agents had been dispatched at least. Most of them had turned up empty handed. One group however had gone dark, along with the entire small commune they had been sent to. And that was where Natasha and Clint were going. Or rather, it was the basis for their next step, allowing the analysts to predict the next target with far greater accuracy.

"Gas you think?" The man asked as he tapped an idle tune against the steering wheel as they neared the commune, as far as their GPS location data was concerned anyway.

"Don't know, no signs of a mobilized response were reported before the on-site agents went dark." She doubted it'd be that easy anyway. Nothing about this mission had been that easy. Didn't mean Clint wasn't onto something, but nothing suggested there'd been that kind of attack on the commune in question, and what would even be the purpose if there had been?

This was, perhaps, the most perplexing thing about these occurrences. They were without discernible reason, at all. Emiya at least had sought out places of conflict, a rough and crude indication of his motives, but at least something to predict him by, no matter how insufficient. This? All of this was as if somebody threw a dart at the map of the world to choose a point of origin, and from there on things would… happen. The only pattern they had been able to determine was… that it sought out people, while at the same time it followed behaviour usually associated with… prey for the lack of a better term.

What or who the predator was, from whence it came and how this unseen factor acted in and of itself was yet another giant unknown. Truthfully Natasha was beginning to feel sick of it. She had been part of countless operations that had yielded more information in less time then this wild goose chase.

She wasn't the only one. This whole hunt was keeping Clint from his family for far longer than anticipated, and it showed with how tense he'd gotten. Hopefully their latest lead would give them something, anything to put this to rest. So it was she fiddled with her laptop, while Clint drove in otherwise tense silence beyond the radio that was more for background noise than anything. She didn't expect to find anything most of her colleagues hadn't already, but that didn't stop her from tr-

The slam of the car's brakes nearly pitched her forward if not for the seatbelt keeping her in her seat. As it was, Natasha hissed out a curse in her native tongue at the way the belt's strap dug into her chest. "What's goin-"

"I got no idea." It's then she slowly follows his gaze, where she saw they were on the edge of the commune. Except something was very wrong with what she was seeing. Clint didn't waste any time as he jumped out of the vehicle, a hand flying for the pistol on his belt as Natasha slowly did the same, her laptop forgotten in favor of her own weapon. Ahead of them, a three car crash had occurred fairly recently, but there was...something strange about the way those milling about the vehicles were acting. One of the distant individuals slowly started towards them with an almost pitiful moan, yet something about the noise had the hairs on her neck standing right up even as Clint leveled his gun towards the approaching figure. "Buddy, you're gonna want to get back in your vehicle."

There was no answer, safe for the person in question lifting their head. It was a young man, or rather it might've been a young man once. Now though, it looked barely human. Flesh hung from its face as if torn away by claw and teeth alike. Bone was visible through the gaps in torn flesh, and one eye was simply… gone. To make matters worse, the unnatural coloration of its skin made it apparent the figure was sick, infected with something, though neither of them could begin to guess what it might be.

"Nat… I don't think it's gas." Clint said as he backed up a few steps, hesitating to shoot at the… person, thing? She didn't know anymore than he did, but the figure growled, and started running towards them. That was enough for her as she put a single round through the figure's skull, bringing it down, much to Clint's astonishment. "Yeesh Nat!"

"Better to be safe than sorry, right?" She asked, her gaze already affixed on the other figures that had taken notice of their presence. Putting the car door between her and the...whatever they are, Clint backpedaled back as well, as the headlights of their car gave them plenty of light to see just what was coming their way. And to say it was something out of a bad horror movie would've been an understatement. "Don't say it." She grumbles as she opens fire.

"Zombies. We're fighting zombies." Disbelieving as he was, she could hear the slight sardonic humor in Hawkeye's voice even as he drops two of the infected victims with one shot, not that either of them paid the feat much mind as the small horde continued to charge their position. Inhuman groaning and growling was interspersed between their pistol fire, the dessicated, torn flesh revealing just how far gone they already were as bite marks located largely along the necks and shoulders made themselves visible the closer they drew.

"I said don't say it." She growled, more in an effort to distract herself from all this madness and have something familiar to focus on then… this. As if to mock her, she saw a bush on the side of the road rustle, right before three more charged at her. She was just able to dart back and away, the lead infected, because she refused to use the Z word even in the safety of her own mind, tumbling into the passenger seat while the other two changed direction towards her.

She snapped off a shot, catching one of them in the right lung. It stumbled, but kept moving, clearly unbothered. As she had both feared and suspected, body shots seemed to be nothing but a waste of ammunition. Two shots rang out, catching them directly in the face. From there she all but walked over their falling bodies, grabbing the third by the neck and twisting its head violently to one side. "Neck snaps still work." She grumbled, ignoring the look she just knew Clint was throwing her way once they'd dealt with the last of the horde. All told, a quick look around revealed no less than twenty freshly made corpses, people that'd been exposed to who knew what.

"Is this what he was doing?" Clint muttered under his breath, giving voice to the same question she'd already asked herself. She cursed quietly again as ever more mysteries piled up, and this one was too large and dangerous to simply leave alone. She opened her mouth to respond when a scream cut through the cold night air. There were still people alive it seemed.

Clint glanced at her, a look that lasted for an instant, and yet seemed to gaze into her own eyes for far longer. It conveyed so much. A silent question, the answer he had already found for himself, and the burden of which that brought. It would've been easier to just leave, smarter even, since as it stood right now, they had precious intel, something that S.H.I.E.L.D. was still wondering about. If they left now, they would have more answers then before, though it'd entail sacrificing the innocents here to save more later.

She moved with him, into the commune. It was stupid, risky, and Fury would berate them for it when he inevitably found out. Neither of them cared at the moment. The shouts came from a small church, barely a chapel really, but it had been enough to contain all the inhabitants of this remote commune. Wood splintered and they ran, no longer concerned with stealth, the sound of their footfalls echoing across abandoned streets.

They dashed through the church's doors, weapons in hand, and were greeted with the sight of a bloody fountain spraying skyward as a throat was torn open by sharp, stained, teeth in the mouth of a small child. It allowed the corpse of the woman to slip from its fingers the moment they burst into the small building, at the same time several others took note of them too. "Nat!" Clint's shout saved her as her gaze snapped towards the right of her, forcing her to slip underneath the grasping arms of one that'd been just a few feet from the doors. Sweeping its legs out from under it as she fell to the floor, Nat locked her legs around the creature's neck, and twisted herself about, snapping its neck like a twig before popping off several rounds towards the rest of the room's shambling occupants. Clint was hardly idle either, darting away from her to distract the few that weren't engaged with her, or were falling from their combined efforts.

The… child was just watching all of this play out with an amused half smile playing along its lips as if… well as if it was watching an entertaining trick its dog performed for its pleasure. "I must say," Nat's gun froze as she aimed towards the...girl? spoke, a noticeable Japanese accent apparent, perhaps tying her to the case after all in some fashion, "I didn't expect such a potent pair of killers to appear that weren't already associated with the Moonlit World." The smile grew more sinister as the girl took a step forward. Clint fired on pure instinct alone.

Natasha saw the muzzle flash from the corner of her eyes and an instant later the child had disappeared, and her partner flew past her, left arm in a horrific angle, bone pushing through skin as he smashed into the wall, the crunch she heard indicating that some of his ribs shattered through the force of the impact. His internal organs would've likely suffered as well. All of this passed through Nat's mind in a blur as the child frowned thoughtfully from the same corner she'd not been occupying mere moments ago. "Hmm, impressive, I expected that to kill him." As if the act was no more noteworthy than a simple intake of breath.

Nat's response was to put two shots into the monster wearing the face of a little girl, but the bullets harmlessly pinged off of the front of 'her' cheek and forehead respectively. "How droll. I expected more from S.H.I.E.L.D., or is that HYDRA now? I always get those two confused."

"What are you talking about?" Not that she expected an answer as she jumped to her feet, her gun clearly ineffective.

The 'child' giggled, a mockery if she'd ever heard one, and put a hand to her hip as she leaned towards Natasha, seeming...taller, more intimidating despite the distance between them. "Telling you what I suspect wouldn't make any difference, little dancer. More importantly, aren't you forgetting your friend that's currently drowning in his own blood?"

Natasha stood still, cocking her head slowly to the side. She didn't try to run. There was no use in it, the child, or the mockery of one rather, could move faster than she was capable of following with her eyes. So there was no use in such an act. "Why haven't you killed us?"

"Because it amuses me." The girl giggled softly, once again pointing at Clint. "You should really go to him, I'm not about to attack you right now." A moan echoed through the church, and the woman whose throat had been torn out when they entered slowly rose. "Of course, I can't guarantee that she'll extend you the same courtesy."

Seeing no choice, Nat snapped her gun towards the impossibility that was a freshly killed woman getting back to her feet, a single round finding her skull. She wasn't disappointed when she looked back, and saw the girl had gone in those few seconds. Nat didn't relax, even as she darted for Clint's side, a burner phone in her free hand. "Please let there be a signal." She murmured, doing what she could to keep Clint alive until help could get to their position. Fury wasn't going to be happy about this, but that was far from her immediate concerns.

Because whatever was going on clearly defied logical explanation.

The signal she got was sporadic, probably too poor for any conversation, but good enough for a primitive high priority evacuation signal that she activated with the press of a button. Then she clipped the burner phone to her breast as she continued to work on Clint as best and fast as she could. Making sure that she could move him, drag him along some hastily bound together stretcher that didn't deserve its name so that they could get out of here. She heard more moaning in the distance, approaching, no doubt the work of that thing.

This was hardly the first operation that had gone bad that she'd been involved in, but if Natasha was being honest with herself… then she never wanted to deal with something like this again. The whole time she couldn't help but think that she was being watched, a sensation that nagged at the corner of her mind, and the fact that the moans seemed to get closer… if she had to guess she would say that the thing in the body of a child was directing these creatures somehow.

However, there was something else amiss. The moans slowly but surely decreased in number, more and more falling silent. Until suddenly a tall lanky man stood in front of her, and she would've been relieved by his unblemished healthy skin, were it not for the callous look in his eyes as he regarded her and Clint. He raised his hand, to do what she had no idea, only that she was already moving, far to slow… when suddenly the girl smashed down like a meteor, nearly crushing Natasha in the process, a clawed hand tearing through skin, sinew, and bone alike as the man was bisected diagonally with a wet gurgle. "Damned Association dog! You're interrupting my evening entertainment!"

"Too bad for you then." Another, a woman, called out right before a bolt of...something, shot out of the well dressed figure's outstretched hand. The girl was just able to dodge, but somehow the woman was keeping up with it, flashes of light filled the forest and Natasha moved, dragging Clint with her as fast as she could. More combatants seemed to join in, shouts filled the air, more firepower of some kind, flames shot past them so close and hot that she felt her skin blister in response. She didn't care, she continued moving, determination and simple instinct merging to keep her moving, keep her alive, and with her, Clint.

Only for the girl to dart in front of her, a hand none too gently slamming into Nat's midsection, propelling her back the way she just came. Rolling to a stop some distance away from Clint's makeshift stretcher, Nat looked up, groaning as the air returned to her lungs, and saw more of their mutual pursuers coming up the side road. "Don't let that thing get away!" "What about those two?" "Kill them, but the Apostle has priority." Okay, that was enough for her to scramble to her feet as a bolt flew right past her cheek. Except this one didn't burn as it passed by her head. The patch of frost that spread across her cheek was just another impossibility she added to the pile.

Ducking under three more, Natasha breathed a little easier when her attempted killers turned their attention elsewhere, hopefully having started chasing after that thing wearing a child's face. That thing that, if Natasha wasn't mistaken, had intended to use them as a distraction against these people. If the situation wasn't as serious, she would've laughed at the fact that now their roles had apparently switched. Too bad for that monster then, because Natasha wasn't about to lay down and die.

She moved, and just kept moving once she snatched up Clint's stretcher again, no matter how distant the sounds of battle got, no matter how silent the world grew. She just kept moving, ignoring the burning sensation of her muscles, the ache of her lungs, all of it just meant that she was still alive. The sight of their car was a welcome one indeed, until she saw it'd been set ablaze at some point, along with the rest of the vehicles they'd stumbled across, but that no one else was around, not even the bodies of the infected she and Clint had killed, barring a few piles of fresh ash. Seeing this, she still felt a small wave of relief even if that meant she'd have to drag Clint as far from this place as she could in the hope of staying ahead of those...whoever they'd been, let alone that monster.

Her phone vibrating against her breast made Nat slam a hand on the button before she started forward once more. "Agent Romanov-"

"Send medivac, agent down." She didn't bother saying more, and really there wasn't a need to either.

"Already enroute, we picked up your signal." The man on the other end responded with a calm that she at once envied and loathed. "The director is asking for a status report."

"I'll tell Fury later! Right now I'm busy!" She hissed out as she kept going since standing still seemed like an invitation for death to come and get her. Still, she needed to tell them something. "Contact with unknown biological or viral contagion, commune's residents were...feral. We were attacked by them, and later by a much more organized response. Operated like a clean up crew of some kind. They were...after someone."

There was a pause, the only other sound her light panting as she continued to run with Clint's unconscious body slowing her down, putting credence to her need for haste. Then she heard in the background the responder say, "Hawkeye is heavily wounded, prepare for surgery. And prepare for quarantine protocols, unknown contagion might be in play."

There was a pause this time, no doubt because Fury had heard every word she had just said, and was issuing orders according to them. Then the agent was back on the line. "Acknowledged, we're preparing for your arrival. MedEvac is enroute, ETA three minutes, uploading coordinates now." Pulling her phone off her shirt, she glanced at the text and put them into memory, before changing direction slightly. "Godspeed Agent Romanov."

"Thanks." She muttered, hanging up since there was nothing more to say. She didn't know if she was still being hunted, if they had lost her trail, killed one another, or simply decided that it wasn't worth it. She wasn't eager to find out which of these theories might or might not be wrong.

She thankfully didn't have to find out because, as promised, the arrival of a transport filled her ears, even as it was surprisingly silent for a craft of its size and the speed it was traveling at. A spotlight's beam fell upon her and Clint moments later, before the light source was cut off. It'd been brief, but they had been seen, recognized. She didn't relax though, half expecting her pursuers to take notice, but at least the vehicle was able to land without interference as men in haz-mat suits started to disembark, rolling a gurney out to meet her. She didn't relax until they were in the air soon after, slumping in the first seat she could find.

The doors hadn't shut yet when the doctors in hazmat suits descended on Clint and her both, checking them over for any sign of injury, infection, contamination, waving their instruments about that told them things that Natasha never had to understand beyond a fashion that would allow her to kill more efficiently. But given their very limited exposure to...whatever had been in that commune, she doubted they had anything to worry about. Or at least, that was the hope as she was poked, prodded, and stuck the whole way back to the nearest S.H.I.E.L.D. medical facility.

It was strangely calming if she was being honest, since such examinations were easily understood. They made sense, they were based in science, reason, logic, but while she hoped that whatever had happened in the commune could be explained in a similar manner, something in her gut told her that it wouldn't be that easy. As she herself was moved to a nearby quarantine room, she couldn't help but worry about Clint as he was moved off into a different direction. Biological hazards aside, he first had to get well enough to actually worry about such things instead of dying long before such risks were of any relevance to him.

Perhaps if she had had the freedom to do so, she would've paced up and down in her small room, as it was however, she was confined to her bed. Prodded, scanned, questioned, again and again. She understood the necessity of it, even as she was given a tablet to write up a report of the events which she began immediately. Such things were best done as soon as possible after an operation. Still, as she wrote her report, she couldn't help but wonder. It didn't help that something that child had said had bothered her.

How had that thing known as much as it did? Was anything of what it had said, true? And if so… then what could she do about it? Sure, she knew S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn't perfect, no organization, no matter how big or small they were, could ever claim to be truly good or just, but...something about what it'd said had rang truer than she would've liked. Whatever the case, she kept that part to herself, because on the very thin chance it had been telling the truth, she didn't want to be disappeared for merely being suspicious.

Hours later, she was able to let out a breath of relief when the doctors finally told her that Clint would make it. He'd spend weeks, probably months even, getting back on his feet, but he would manage. "And the fact we're not drooling over ourselves means we're not infected?" She asks the man in front of her, who she pointedly noted wasn't in a haz-mat suit.

"No elevated white blood cell count, no unusual anomalies of any kind, at least none we can find. We'd still like you and Agent Barton to remain in quarantine for the prequirisite seventy-two hours, but I'm hopeful your exposure to whatever ravaged the commune was minimum at best." That was a load off her mind, though she should've figured that'd be the case with how quickly that woman had turned into one of those things. "You're not surprised?"

"No. Seemed to have a pretty quick turn around from what we saw." She droned, more just tired than anything by this point.

"As your report said, but it's...still an astonishing contagion if it's as dangerous as your report claims." She couldn't fault his disbelief, it was insane to even consider, but S.H.I.E.L.D. had encountered a lot of...impossible things during its years of operation. With that said, astonishing wasn't the word she'd use to describe it, but it was fitting nonetheless she supposed.

"Any reports from the site?" She asked, really she had to know since it was standard procedure after all to move in and drag home everything of interest. The doctor though simply shook his head.

"A team was dispatched, but they found nothing of interest, Agent Romanov. No signs of struggle, bodies or anything really. Someone cleaned up, and they did it well at that considering your report. Right now it's just… a ghost town. As if everyone had simply left yesterday beyond the signs of a fight that are all over the town."

"Figures...so that really was a clean up crew then." She let out a fresh expletive in Russian. "What in the world did we walk into?"

"I've no idea Agent Romanov. And that...worries me." That was an understatement of the century. She was sure this was going to worry a lot of people, especially if they didn't uncover anything soon. She supposed she should be grateful that they hadn't lost more agents. She was, but she couldn't help but worry that their ignorance would hurt them in the long run later.

For the moment though all she could do was wait out her quarantine, get the blisters on her face treated. Read through every little thing she could find of the reports being made in regards to the commune, as well as the investigations regarding Emiya in general. She was deep in the forensic report of the abandoned mansion when Fury called her.

Even on screen he didn't look happy, if anything he looked even more saturnine then usual. "Romanov, I read your report a dozen times now." He stated as he leaned closer to the camera. "Do you have the slightest idea what the hell is going on?"

"No." She was forced to concede. "I can only speculate that the… entity knew about S.H.I.E.L.D. due to our missing agents. They were probably interrogated if it recognized them as… unusual."

"That's one question answered." He growled out, single eye narrowing at that. "We still got a dozen more though, more now."

"Yes, sir." She agreed, after all he only said what she herself was thinking. Some part of her was actually glad to see him just as frustrated at it all as she herself was.

"For the time being, I'm willing to wait for more information." He declared after a brief moment of silence. "I want to know every little thing our people in Fuyuki can dig up before I send more people to look into this Emiya and whoever he might be working for. You and Barton are reassigned."

"Rehab for Barton." She guessed easily enough, a suspicion he soon enough confirmed when he nodded. "What about me though?"

"Once you got cleared with all certainty, and your own wounds have healed, I'll assign you to an undercover op." He told her as his lips curled into an unhappy snarl. "I need you to keep an eye on Stark."

"Alright." She could guess why she was being sent. It was no secret Stark was a womanizer not unlike his father before he settled down. "Any particular reason why, sir?" It was a good question to ask, and it was reasonable she'd ask it since you didn't send someone like her without having a suspicion if nothing else.

If bad mood incarnate became a human being, it would look like Nick Fury in that moment. "Because Stark built himself a mobile weapon suit and put a giant target on his back."

"Good enough of a reason as any." She hummed, before returning to her professional demeanor. "Might as well get to reading up on everyone's favorite former arms manufacturer since I'm gonna be stuck here for a few days."

"I'll have someone send what we've got on Stark, but Agent Romanov, this isn't over. You did good getting yourself and Barton back alive." The look on his face softened slightly, but just as quickly started to scowl once more. "That said, you pull something that stupid again, I will personally toss your ass into the nearest cell."

"Understood." She replied but by then he had already disconnected the call. Thus he left her once again alone with her thoughts which continued their futile attempts to make sense of what had happened.

End Notes:

Nomad-117: Now then, I hope this was… acceptable. In my absence if you wanna call it that I slowly got more into the Nasuverse…. Which is absolutely insane the more I get to know about it. Honestly, I sometimes wonder if it is just confusing at times or I am selectively moronic. Anyway, our brave friends survived their first encounter with a Dead Apostle… by being used as a distraction or at least that was the plan but you know, they are still alive so it counts.

Now with that out of the way, I would very much like to thank my dear friend Vergil1989 once again for being willing to play babysitter to me and kick me in the nuts to motivate me. If not for him I fear I would still leave you all waiting for this chapter.

Now then, since I also did it the last time. Allow me to offer you recommendations for other stories… that update more regularly then I do and are of excellent quality. They are all SAO stories from Solid Shark, and I myself enjoyed them a fair bit, though I am certain that his other stories are of excellent quality as well…. Anyway.

First: Monochrome Duet

Second: Oath of Rebellion

Third: Under the Osmanthus Tree