Chapter 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel or any of the characters own by Marvel. I only own the idea and my characters.
"I'm heading out!" Lexi calls out to her mom.
"Wait!" Lexi's mom called out.
Turning around, away from the front door a little annoyed. Lexi longed for the freedom that the mountain provided.
As Lexi turned, she was pulled into a warm embrace. "Please be safe." Her mom quietly pleaded into her hair.
Hugging her back, the two of them stood there for a moment or two, before breaking away.
"Come on boy." Lexi calls to her 3 year old German Shepard, Charlie.
Lexi puts her hiking gear into the back of the family car and lets Charlie into the back seat, and starts off towards the mountains.
It's been a whole three months since the alien invasion in New York City. This is the first time that Lexi's mother, Marie, let her eighteen year old, military brat daughter outside the boundaries of the city that they lived in. It didn't matter that they lived more than halfway across the country from New York.
But now, Lexi is 18. She has graduated from high school. And she is free.
And what does she do with her new found freedom? She goes hiking.
!
They reach the end of the long trail after a three hour long hike.
Stopping to enjoy the view, and take some pictures. Lexi has not felt this calm and happy in almost six months, when her dad Thomas was sent on another deployment to Afghanistan.
"So what do you say, should we head back, or should we explore a little?" Lexi asks Charlie.
Charlie nudges her to the left, off of the trail.
"Exploring it is."
They hike another hour to the south, when sounds that do not belong in the forest reach their ears. Curious what and where it's coming from, Lexi and Charlie head off, following the noise.
As they got closer, they found the source of the noise. They came upon a military base of some kind. There were big loud diesel trucks driving on gravel, and lots of shouting in a few different foriegn languages.
"Well, we have two options." Lexi said to her dog. "We can either take the safer option and turn around and go home, and pretend that we didn't see anything. Or, we could investigate, like the true adrenaline junkies that we are."
Charlie crouched down low, ready to charge at the base. And creeps closer to the building.
"Investigate?"
Charlie growls, and tugs on Lexi's left pant leg, to go forward.
"Investigate it is." Lexi whispers. Slowly and quietly the two of them make their way closer to the base.
"You know, this is how horror movies start out right?"
Charlie just huffs at her.
!
Hidden up in the Rocky Mountains, there is a military base. It is not American, nor does it belong to any country that is an ally of America. The "people", who reside within, or come and go, are not ones that any TRUE American would tolerate.
When night fell, on August 23rd 2012, Lexi and her faithful companion, Charlie, approached the fence that kept intruders, such as themselves, out.
The two of them had spent the hours leading up to nightfall, casing the place. Luckily, Lexi's high school german classes came in handy, with which they learned a few interesting things in their observations.
None of them spoke in English.
They all spoke German or Russian.
They were not affiliated with any one country, or nationality.
Hydra was still very much alive and kicking.
Lexi and Charlie are TRUE Americans.
When overhearing that Hydra is still around, and that they are Hydra, two words came to Lexi's mind.
Hell.
No.
!
"Okay Charlie, we can do this one of two ways. We can do this the smart and safer way, and call the Avengers." Lexi turned to her four legged friend, "Or, we can be like Batman and take them on ourselves."
Charlie lowly growled at the base.
"Batman it is."
!
As night fell, Lexi and Charlie prepared themselves to use all of the training that Lexi's dad, Colonel Thomas Jones of the US Marines, ingrained into them. Lexi pulls out her hoodie and after putting it on, then pulls the neck and face covering she uses to help keep herself warm in cold weather. Attaching her rock climbing gear to her, Lexi turns to double check that her and Charlie's harness are secure. They wait, up in their hiding spot in a tree.
As they waited, Lexi pulled out binoculars and took note of the guard rotation. Next she took a closer look at what appeared to be the only door in and out of the base. There's probably at least one more, but Lexi would need access to blueprints of the place. After a moment or two, Lexi found just off to the side of the door, a keypad and card reader. Watching a couple of different groups enter into the base, Lexi was quickly able to memorize the code. Now to figure out a way to get a keycard.
An hour after the sun had completely gone down, they slowly approached the fence. They already know that the fence is electrified, as demonstrated by the brave squirrel that had accidentally touched it trying to collect some nuts an hour ago.
Waiting for the spotlight and the guards to move past, they quickly and quietly move along the tree branch and drop down onto a couple of crates on the other side of the fence, and onto the ground. Quickly taking cover behind some trucks, they hide from the spot light as it moves past them.
'That was close. Too close.' Lexi thought.
Once the light moved away, they hurriedly checked if the coast was clear, before dashing to the next cover spot.
Because the spot light made a rotation every 10 seconds, and the soldiers every two minutes, their progress was slow. When they got to the last cover spot before the door, they got ready to make a run for the entrance. Lexi with the key card that she had lifted off of one of the agents, in hand.
Just then, a car that had just pulled up to the compound, stopped five yards in front of the entrance. As the two men who had just stepped out of the car approached the door, Lexi and Charlie stuck to the shadows as the two agents gained access to the building. Just as the door was closing, Lexi and Charlie slipped through the door, unnoticed.
Being very careful not to be caught on camera, Lexi covertly checks all of the rooms as she passes by, making her way down to lower levels. Periodically stepping inside rooms to hide from guards on patrol. While taking a quick breather, a sip of water, and a quick look around the room.
Inside one of these rooms, Lexi finds a map with locations and dates written on it. Quickly reading through the german that was written there, she learned that these locations were more Hydra bases. Which caused the patriotic anger to surge even further within her. Stowing both the map and her anger away for later, Lexi and Charlie head out again.
!
Ducking inside one of the rooms, Lexi turns around to find an office with a lone scientist inside working away. Upon hearing the door close, the scientist looks up and sees what is obviously an intruder. The man reaches for his phone on the table, but before he can sound the alarm, Lexi leaps forward and quickly gets the man into a headlock, cutting off his oxygen. Rendering the man unconscious.
Once he had stopped struggling, Lexi dragged him over to a closet before locking him in.
Moving over to the computer that the scientist was standing in front of just moments before, Lexi practiced her computer skills, to hack into the base's mainframe. Which, honestly, was laughable. Lexi had learned the ins and outs of computers on a Stark laptop. This in comparison, was nothing.
Taking a couple moments to look through the different files, Lexi had to suppress a gag. Moving on from the images, she downloaded as many files onto the local hard drive as she could.
Lexi also took a moment or two to go into the security cameras and loop old footage, and scrub themselves out of any footage that had managed to catch them, to cover their presence inside of the base.
Hearing footsteps approaching she and Charlie had moments to unhook the hard drive, and get to a hiding spot, before the door opened and an agent poked his head into the room.
Holding their breaths, they anxiously waited for the guard to leave.
"Hm, must have gone back to his quarters." The Hydra agent murmured, before turning around and closing the door.
Lexi and Charlie for a moment breath a sigh of relief, then they hear the door lock.
As the footsteps fade away, Lexi softly thumps her head against the wall of her hiding spot.
"Shit."
After the footsteps fade away, Lexi tries to use the keycard that she had gotten outside, but it didn't work.
Lexi goes back over to the storage closet that she had put the scientist in, and grabs his key card. They waited another couple minutes to go by, and after they were sure that the guards on patrol had turned down the next hallway, they used the keycard and breathed a sigh of relief when the door gave a little click, and the door unlocked. Opening the door, Lexi peeked out of the room, and once she was sure that the coast was clear, they continued on through the base. Grabbing the scientist's personal laptop and stowing it away in her backpack along the way.
On their journey to the lowest level, Lexi had picked up many useful things, and not just information.
For example, when they got three levels down. This particular level had heavy Hydra agents activity.
Using her leatherman, Lexi removed the screws in a vent cover. While looking over her shoulder for any hydra agents, Lexi directs Charlie into the ventilation system.
They crawl through the shafts for ten minutes, before one of the vent covers gave in under Lexi (Thing was rusty and corroded. That is Lexi's story, and she is sticking to it).
Charlie gives a low whine, as he peeks down into the room that Lexi fell into.
'Ow.' Lexi thinks to herself, wincing from where she had hit her head.
Hearing Charlie's whine, Lexi looks up and signals up to him to stay put.
At Lexi's signal, Charlie stays where he is as she searches the room. Looking around, Lexi found herself inside a locker room. On the right were showers, behind her was the door back out into the hall, and to the left was another door. It was this door that interested Lexi the most. This door led to the armory.
Finding no one else was in the room, Lexi looks up at Charlie and nods. Charlie jumped down onto the closest locker, before jumping down into Lexi's waiting arms.
After setting down Charlie, Lexi made her way over to the closest locker, picking the lock. Once she got the locker open, she started going through it, seemingly looking for something.
Charlie head butted her, and once she looked at him, Charlie gave her a quizzical look.
"I'm looking for disguises. We can't get down to the lowest levels looking the way we do."
Charlie looked up at her. How a dog is able to give a 'Professor Look', Lexi may never know.
"Fine," Lexi rolls her eyes, "I can't get down to the lowest levels looking the way I do right now. If we want to be able to slip past those bastards then, as much as it pains me, I'm going to need to look like one of them."
It's not until she gets to the fourth locker that she finally finds a uniform that would actually fit her. Once that was down and she was changed into the uniform, Lexi moved onto the adjourning room, where the arms and armor was.
Stepping into the armory, Lexi was noticeably more excited. She was like a kid in a toy store, that was told that she could have anything that she wanted. Being the child of a Marine, Lexi felt right at home surrounded by all of these weapons.
Going straight for the M16A4, Lexi grinned happily as she picked up. Grabbing five magazines for the rifle, Lexi then grabbed a belt so that she could put the cartridges on it. Lexi also grabbed a SIG Sauer M17, along with five magazines for it, six M67 frag grenades, an M9 bayonet knife and a dozen mine charges (each being about the size of a hockey puck, with an adhesive on the back), as well as a dentator.
Looking around to make sure she isn't forgetting anything, she spots the bullet proof vests, and grabs the right size. Taking a second to think, Lexi went back to the gun rack. And picked up silencers for the two guns that she has, and screwed them on.
Carefully putting everything in the appropriate place on her person, and making sure that everything was secure, they made their way to the door.
!
After another half an hour, Lexi and Charlie finally make it down to the lowest level.
Following the pipes that line the walls and ceiling, they reach the Boiler Room. Working both quickly and carefully, Lexi gets to work on setting up and priming two of the mines.
Charlie nudges her and looks at her as if asking, "What are you doing?"
"We didn't come all this way, just to leave this base in operation." Lexi says before returning to work. Charlie turns around and then goes to the door, to act as a look out.
Once the first two charges are ready, they then leave the room and slowly make their way back up to the surface, setting charges at strategic places and where they won't be found.
Reaching the first level, Lexi and Charlie join the back of one patrol group as they are exiting the main door.
Once outside, they break away from the group, and start to head over to where they jumped over the fence, when an agent noticed them.
"Hey, what rotation are you part of?" She asked suspiciously.
Lexi kept her head down, with the covering shielding her face. Lexi kept on moving.
"Hey, I asked you a question!" the agent grabbed onto Lexi's arm to pull her to a stop.
Quick as lightning, Lexi reached around with her other arm, and pulled the agents back towards her chest. The arm that the agent had a hold of, Lexi had turned it around and twisted that arm behind the agent's back, and put her other hand over the agent's mouth.
Lexi pulls the Hydra agent back behind a truck, before she quickly lets go of the agent's arm, reaches up, and snaps the agent's neck.
Before Lexi can start freaking out, she pushes it down to be dealt with later, and shoves the dead Hydra agent under the truck.
Before anyone else could see her, they quickly made their way to where they entered the base.
They draw up short, upon finding that the crates and vehicles that they could have used to climb up over the electrified fence had been moved while they were inside.
Looking around for an alternative route, they don't find a way up over the fence. However Charlie nudges Lexi over towards a motorcycle with a sidecar.
"Looks like we're goin through the front door." Lexi breathed out to Charlie.
Walking casually over to the motorcycle, Charlie jumps into the sidecar as Lexi grabs the helmet that was in the sidecar and gets to work on hot wiring the engine.
About a hundred yards away, back the way they had just come, a group of technicians went over to the trucks to inspect them for an upcoming mission.
Agent Smith yawned as he held up his tablet to take notes on. He checked the back passenger door on the driver's side, and marked it off. Still looking at his tablet, he stepped towards the driver's door, before tripping over something on the ground. Picking himself back up, Agent Smith grabbed his tablet only to curse under his breath and grumble to himself about the now broken screen of his tablet.
'This was the third one in a week!' he thought.
Sighing about his misfortune, he looked down to see what he had tripped over. Shining his flashlight on it, he sees a foot peeking out from underneath the truck. Looking under the truck following the foot that he tripped over, all the way up to the face. Upon spying the sightless eyes, Agent Smith stood up.
Recognizing the agent, Smith let out another curse, and reached for his comm link.
He got as far as, "We have an intru-".
BOOM!
Explosions rocked the base.
Agent Smith was thrown off his feet, and into the electric fence. He was dead before he hit the ground.
As the yelling from the base rose into the air, they were quickly drowned out and then completely disappeared altogether. The bombs had taken out the support pillars, causing the entire base to collapse in on itself. Killing everyone inside and within a 500 yard radius.
Lexi and Charlie, just barely keeping ahead of the ground collapsing beneath them.
Lexi drives for an hour, before pulling off of the road, onto a side path that leads to a small camping ground.
Charlie jumped out before the bike had fully stopped, and didn't even bother to sniff out a good spot. He just lifted his leg and let it go.
Once Charlie was done, he walked over to where Lexi was setting up a place for the both of them to sleep.
"We can't go back."
Charlie tilts his head.
"We can't go back home."
Charlie whines.
"If we do, Mom will be in hysterics, and demand where we were and what we've been doing." Lexi sighs, "And then it'd be next to impossible to take out the other bases. And then Mom and Dad would catch onto what we're doing, and that would bring them to the bases. That would be putting them in danger. The best thing to do, the safest thing to do for our family, is to stay away. Until Hydra is gone, we can't go home."
Charlie whines again and places his head on Lexi's leg. Lexi smiles sadly and reaches down and gives Charlie some scratches behind the ears.
"They'll be okay. We'll be okay. It's not forever. We'll see them again. I promise."
!
The next morning, Lexi pulls out some jerky, and gives some to Charlie. As she nibbles on one, she pulls out the map that she had gotten from the base.
After studying it for a minute, Lexi speaks to Charlie, "It looks like the closest base to us in Colorado." Lexi folds the map back up and puts it away. "We should leave as soon as we're ready."